He was born on November 23th, 1912, in Vereda Nueva. He was fourteen years old when he entered the Institute of Secondary Education in Havana, graduating from Bachelor of Arts and Sciences. The intense activities of his revolutionary feeling frustrated his purposes of studying Medicine. Cuba lived shady days under Machado’s dictatorship and secretly emerged the Communist Party, following the line of Marxism-Leninism. In the 1930s Osvaldo Sánchez organized a Workers' Center in Vereda Nueva where he taught the workers the first letters and gave them knowledge of Moral and Civic Instruction.
It is remarkable that Osvaldo Sánchez, being the son of well-off parents, left behind a better way of life to devote himself entirely to the struggle. Wanting to be an additional worker, he worked at Pellejero Farm, in Caimito del Guayabal, dedicated to the cultivation of tobacco. Beginning the revolutionary struggle he suffered his first prison, on January 9th,1931.
On January 10th, 1931, in the Society of Instruction and Recreation José Martí, in Vereda Nueva, there would be a dance coinciding with the third anniversary of the assassination of Julio Antonio Mella. The celebration provoked the indignation of the locality’s progressive youth, so with Osvaldo Sánchez at the head, they took the Society on the eve of the dance. There he extolled Mella’s virtues and called the people not to attend the dance. Thus he was arrested for the first time. Later he militated in the ranks of revolutionary youth. He married the revolutionary fighter Clementina Serra and joined the Union of Communist Youth.
A straight, upright and honorable man. Osvaldo Sánchez moved to Santiago de Cuba and his house became a meeting place and trench for revolutionary activities. In 1936, he was surprised at a meeting in his house and both he and his wife Clementina Serra were arrested by the police officers.
In the fifties, the Communist Party was declared illegal but did not cease its work. It was Osvaldo Sánchez, by agreement of the Central Committee of the Party, the person who from the first moments was in contact with Fidel Castro. After being accredited to the 26th July Movement, he went to Mexico and presented Fidel his ideas related to the revolutionary movement on the island. Following the landing of the Granma yacht in 1956, he served as a liaison between the National Committee of the Popular Socialist Party and the Rebel Army in Sierra Maestra. Here he used the pseudonym ''Rafael''. He tirelessly worked in the organization of supplies for the Rebel Army in Yaguajay and Escambray.
He participated in Santa Clara’s battle and entered Havana with the column of the Heroic Guerrilla. After the revolutionary triumph he worked with Ramiro Valdés in the State Security Bodies of the Ministry of the Interior. He died on January 9th, 1961. During his mourning Che said: "When there have been luminous lives there can be no pointless deaths." Such was the life of the martyr of the Revolution, Osvaldo Sánchez Cabrera''.
